Spam is a type of malicious computer code. It is sometimes referred to as electronic junk mail or junk newsgroup postings. Spam is generally e-mail advertising for some product sent to a mailing list or newsgroup. It can be generally defined as unsolicited and unwanted e-mail or other electronic messages.
In addition to wasting people's time with unwanted e-mail, spam also consumes a lot of network bandwidth. Consequently, there are many organizations, as well as individuals, who have taken it upon themselves to fight spam with a variety of techniques. As the Internet is public, little can be done to prevent spam, just as it is impossible to prevent paper junk mail from arriving in a real mailbox. However, some online services have instituted policies to prevent spammers from spamming their subscribers. One such technique involves using disposable e-mail addresses.
A disposable e-mail address is an alias of a real e-mail account. Oftentimes a web page or other online service of some type requires divulging an e-mail address to complete the transaction or request. Rather than providing a real e-mail address, one or more aliases are created that are used to interact with the requesting entity. From the entity's perspective, the entity has a legitimate e-mail address through which it may communicate. As shown in FIG. 1 (Prior Art), e-mail using a disposable e-mail address is directed to a Disposable E-Mail server (DEA server) 110. In many senses a DEA server operates as any other e-mail server. E-mails directed to the server are routed to the correct recipient. DEA servers operate under the presumption that a single user may have several disposable e-mails. These e-mails may be active or be disabled to help in the control of spam. The DEA server, therefore, first determines 120 whether the disposable e-mail address has been disabled. Typically, upon verification that spam exists, the disposable e-mail address corresponding to the spam is shut down 130 or canceled, stopping the unwanted spam from arriving in the user's inbox. In situations where the disposable e-mail address is active, the DEA server looks up 150 the real or un-aliased e-mail address associated with the disposable e-mail address, and forwards 160 the message to the real e-mail account. Some DEA servers also perform anti-spam checks 140 or apply anti-spam filters. Typically, a disposable e-mail server is interposed between the user or client computer and the regular e-mail server, website, news server, or the like.
Since a single user can have multiple disposable e-mail addresses, having a compromised disposable e-mail address resulting in a deluge of spam or other malicious code does not carry with it the connotations of having to cancel the user's e-mail service, contacting the user's legitimate contacts with a new e-mail address, and so forth. The solution to the compromised e-mail address is as simple as disposing of the disposable e-mail address.
The use of disposable e-mail addresses is not without its challenges. Twenty websites necessitating e-mail addresses to complete the transaction may require the generation of twenty or more aliases. Clearly the number of disposable e-mail addresses can grow quickly. While disposable e-mail servers manage the day to day forwarding of e-mail and other forms of electronic mail to the correct addresses, they still function only as a conduit for the e-mail. The user can still be deluged by an onslaught of unsolicited e-mail, this time sent via several disposable e-mail addresses. Several e-mail clients, such as Microsoft Outlook®, Lotus Notes®, and Eudora® possess options to manage spam. Most allow a user to identify unwanted e-mail as spam, junk mail, or the like, and to move the messages into a separate folder or delete the message entirely. This operation however, takes place locally, and while it may effectively control the contents of a user's inbox it fails to address diminished network bandwidth due to spam's presence. If a user wishes to disable the disposable e-mail address, he or she must communicate such intent with the disposable e-mail server. This duplication of effort, and the tedious nature of keeping track of what disposable e-mail address to delete, reduces the likelihood that the use of disposable e-mail addresses will reduce spam. Furthermore, the user is unaware of the how the originator of the spam obtained the user's e-mail address. While the spam is clearly tied to a disposable e-mail address associated with the user, the user, without significant investigation, is not informed of the originating activity that generated the disposable e-mail address, and thus may continue to support it.
There remains a need to automate the disablement of disposable e-mail addresses and to inform the user of the disposable e-mail address resulting in the spam. The present invention addresses these and other problems, as well as provides additional benefits.